Friday, December 31, 2010

I had an awesome dream ~chauffeur driven by 'Jeremy Clarkson' in his highly acclaimed Ford Mondeo. Beside me was a younger version of 'Nicole Kidman', side by side enjoying the ride and sightseeing along the beach front... And suddenly we found ourselves to be heading towards Bangsar. How'd it happened? All of a sudden a red coloured Ferrari pulled alongside and I was actually driving it. How'd it happened? LOL....Poooof ..... I was back to reality and all of it was just a dream. A wonderful dream and the only thing real about it was that we were really heading towards Bangsar. Hmm.... Deja vu....

This is a day to be cherished with both laughter and happiness. A day where we will be having our last supper with a close friend who will be leaving us for greener pasture abroad. All this is happening at 'Four Seas Seafood Grill @ Bangkung, Bangsar'.

Funky Interior

The Glass Tank

The interior of this place is breathtaking. It was like 'love at first sight'. Somehow I have always loved upmarket style with comfort and cleanliness, dining here would be as comfortable as lying on in bed. Cool indeed.

Coffin Bay Live Oyster

Traditional Chili Oz Mussels

Moules Mariniere Oz Mussels

Let's be a little adventurous for once. Instead of salads or soup for starters we had 'shells' instead. Big ones small ones whatever.... As you can see from the lovely pics above, who would not fall in love this Christmas? Everything's so perfect, so smooth, so relax, so delicious yet so cool. It's like listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Oh well Four Seas, Four Seasons, Four of a kind Four whatever...... Isn't she lovely???

Oven Baked Mulloway

..... with mushroom ragout, onion mint yogurt and beetroot crisps. Yeah that's it. I totally got it all right. And the adventure doesn't stop here. It may not look like any ordinary foodie that we will eat everyday but it does look pretty and when I sank my teeth into them, hell just broke loose. I could see 'Nicole Kidman' again. Chuckle.... Very amazing, very original, very odd looking stuff.... :)

Braised Wagyu Beef Cheeks

...... with mashed potato and gravy. So tender, so succulent, so delicious, so high in calories, so original, so 'there goes my diet', so mouth watering. I could feel the meat melting in my mouth if only I am on 'heat'. LOL. Pretty good indeed but I would rather go for a burger. Dang! But this will do ........ o.O

Pan Fried Grouper

Spaghetti Aglio Olio Frutti Di Mare

Garlic King Prawn

Food were simply amazing. Taste was 'out of this world'. I am already in a world of my own trying to figure out what struck me. My thoughts just keeps coming back to food no matter how much I wanted out. Hehehe. The fish, the prawns, the spaghetti was simply marvelous. I have lost all words for any descriptions in any way. Just eat it!

Yin Yang Creme Brule

Thyme & Pine Nut Tart served with Haagen-Dazs ice-cream

Valrhona Chocolate Mousse with Marmalade
Fresh Creme & Candied Basil

As for dessert, we simply had all the above. I would say this again ~ words just cannot describe how fabulous these little angels taste like. I would not say that these are the best I've had in years (or I ever had) but somehow if you were to dine from A to Z you will be amused and amazed later. Could it be the atmosphere or could it be the food or could it be both. Make a date to find out......

Conclusion : Very pricey. But what do you expect from 'fine dining'? Very good choice of food ~ East meets West. Lovely environment, lovely setup, lovely food, lovely blue lights that makes you wonder whether you are on dry land or are you under the sea..... I liked it. A 4/5. And the dream a 5/5. LOL.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

It's hard to resist the temptation of delicious food but it's even harder to shed the extra weight gain from all the consumption throughout the years. Malaysian have always been the lucky ones when food is concerned. There's local Malay food, Chinese food, Indian food, Western food ..... the list goes on. In other words Malaysian are a spoiled lot.

This venture took us to a place I could never imagined existed. A close friend of my wife was more than willing to arrange a 'makan' trip along with family members. It's located far far away ...... I got my GPS ready for this venture but just didn't know the name of the restaurant or the coordinates .... so ...... the GPS ended up useless to us. No worries about that cause we will be following closely the driver ahead of us who will be leading the way.

We have to go through MRR2 then to Ampang / Cheras then to somewhere which is foreign to me and at one moment I really thought I was lost. BUT our live navigator's car was still ahead of ours so it means that we were on track. If not mistaken it took us to the old trunk road that can lead to Semenyih up the hilly road and a few corners left and right and finally we saw a sign with a pointer pointing to the right. OK this must be the place but all I can see is just open land and lot's of tree on both sides... but no restaurant.

Photo taken on our way out.

We had to drive further into the forest .... LOL ..... maybe another 1-2 km. Seriously at one point if not because of our friend leading the way we would have made a u-turn and leave this place as there simply wasn't any shops around nor restaurants around nor any souls around. Viola, it was totally a different scene once we reached the restaurant.

Main entrance of the restaurant

This place really do look good and wonderfully done and well maintained and the whole place looks like a resort. We couldn't resist the temptation of snapping as many pictures as possible as we were truly amazed with this place. Not only that ...... a lovely aroma of food being grilled greeted us.

Lamb being grilled by professional chef

Holy Smoke ..... the grilled lamb was truly mouth watering from it's aroma and from it's look. This is one dish that will end up on our table for sure. Simply marvelous indeed. And this place never fails to impress me further. The whole restaurant sit's atop of a very large pond. A pond with lot's of fish in it and all are being rared by the owner of the restaurant. Unbelievable!!! Breathtaking!!!

Various pics of the restaurant and it's surrounding

The waiter managed to usher us to a long table joined together to make dining easy for a us all since there were so many of us. It didn't take us long to be seated, to order and to absorb the beauty of this place. This place was pretty crowded when we arrived and the crowd seemed to be getting more intense when the clock strikes 12pm. This shows the popularity of this restaurant amongst city dwellers.

Tom Yam Seafood (Chilli) @ RM18.00

Tom Yam Seafood (White) @ RM18.00

Without fail 'Tom Yam' is a must when dining in a Thai restaurant. We made it even better by ordering two different types of tom yam ~ one is the chilli type and one which comes with clear broth. Firstly both the soup tasted really good ~ would be even better if it was a little more sour and spicy. Oh well it was perfect! Such a joy slurping the hot soup. Another joy is that the portion was huge ... pretty enough for us all. The seafood that came with it was very uplifting as the portion was huge indeed.

Sawi Bawang Putih @ RM15.00

Kangkung Belacan @ RM15.00

Empat Jenis Sayur Belacan @ RM15.00

Ladies Fingers fried with shallots @ RM15.00

We had four different types of vegetables to cater the big crowd which consists of young and old folks as well as middle aged group. We truly enjoyed all the above be it plain fried or friend with belacan. Just delicious in it's own ways. But I just found the belacan to be a tad salty.

Fried Rice @ RM15.00

Fu Yoong Egg @ RM10.00

A simple plate of fried rice and 'Fu Yoong' egg managed to make it's way to our table. This was specially ordered to cater the kiddos who have a special connection with these sort of foodie. Fried rice was rather bland and tasteless but the egg was really delicious.

Grilled Lamb

I never forget the aroma which greeted us when we arrived and a must order for us. Truly enough this grilled lamb was fabulous. So succulent, delicious, tender but just slightly burnt. Otherwise it was a worthy dish.

Fried Talapia in Thai Sauce

Everyone was eagerly waiting for the arrival of the 'FISH'. Supposed to be one of the restaurant's famous dish. From the first impression I would have reckon the fish has gone through a tough period in the wok during frying cause there were signs of over-frying all over the fish. True enough that is but the whole fish was saved by the lovely Thai sauce that came with it. Tasted pretty good, I must say.

Conclusion : Not the best dishes we had ordered. There were ton's of choices to choose from. Ours was to cater to satisfy the young and old tummies. We will surely make another trip to this wonderful place which is located away from the hustling bustling city madness. One can really enjoy the food here with natural surroundings. Food was pretty good but rather expensive. It was truly an amazing feast and an amazing journey for us all. A 3/5 based on the above food and a 4/5 for environment.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Oh! I was so in a mood to cook up something for dinner today. In fact I was getting ready to cook up some chicken dish and also some broccoli. BUT my darling called to request for some Western food instead of Eastern and she specifically wanted to have some pasta.

This put me in a fix as I was not sure whether I have all the ingredients to cook up a good palate of pasta. It took me awhile to run through my inventory and .... and .... yeah ..... dang ...... I do not have any minced meat! But hey since my darling wanted me to dish pasta for her she was more than glad to buy some minced meat for me.

I used a mixture of 'Barilla's' Penne Rigate n.73 and Fettuccine. It just took me between 8 - 11 mins to cook them. As for the sauce I had some Leggos Bolognese tomato sauce mixed with 400 grams of minced beef meat, some red and yellow capsicums, shallots, garlic and some T3T4 ingredients, of course.

Oh la la ........ the finished product was truly amazing. The aroma itself was a killer. The first spoonful was made in heaven. The rest was amazing. So sumptuous, so tantalizing, so delicious, so perfect and so unique in it's own ways. Wink...wink...... lol.

Satisfying indeed. Would it be grilled chicken for tomorrow??? You bet as long as time is with me ..........

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Boxing day. A day to shop till you drop. It may be a good thing to do since Chinese New Year is just around the corner. New clothes, new pants, new decorations, new shoes are some of the things in my list this coming new year. The feeling of shopping with Christmas songs blaring from the loudspeakers makes things even better. This the season to be jolly ..... Cool.

Shopping at One Utama can be very challenging especially finding a parking space during peak times like now. It took me close to half an hour to find one and we truly are ready to make full use of time to shop till we drop. Furthermore, I just loved to shop at One Utama and I can never get tired of it unless I run out of 'dough'. LOL.

Another reason why I loved shopping here is that there are just so many restaurants to choose from when hunger strikes. Unfortunately this place was crowded and every restaurant we went to was packed with patrons. We were at the old wing and wanted to dine at 'Nyonya Colours' but the queue was so long and there simply was any empty seats available. 50 meters away was another eatery which was half packed and we decided to dine here. This place is called 'Penang Street Cafe'.

Iced White Coffee @ RM2.80 & Cham Ping @ RM3.00

Thirst got into us and we were just so into having a good cuppa of iced white coffee and a cham ice. Drinks was just ok but I kind of enjoyed the former. Tasted really cool.

Since this place is specializing in Penang food we decided to order the following which was our favourite - chicken lobak, assam laksa and curry mee.

Chicken Lobak @ RM6.60

The chicken lobak (oh how I wished it was pork lobak) was hot and crunchy when served. Tasted alright since it's made of chicken meat. Could be better but we had no choice since they only serves 'halal' food here.

Assam Laksa @ RM6.90

My wife is a sucker for assam laksa and it would be interesting to try this out since they call themselves 'Penang Street Cafe'. The soup was sour enough which was good. But the portion was simply too little. Frankly, I wasn't expecting this place to dish out really good Penang assam laksa judging from it's crowd. But OK - lah.

Curry Noodle @ RM7.90

As for me I never fail to order a bowl of curry noodle whenever I visit a Penang restaurant. BUT this curry noodle is really horrible. Yuks! There's simply no taste in it just the taste of santan, that's all. Portion is so little even the condiments that came with is was pathetic. An instant noodle taste even better than this.

Conclusion : Lousy. Lousy. Lousy. Yay to 3 lousy cheers!!! We paid RM27.20 for all the above which was not too bad if the food was good. But no this was not the case. Adios amigos ....... you won't be seeing me here again. First and last for me. A 1/5 - out of goodwill, really.

Monday, December 27, 2010

24th December, 2010.
This special day has arrived. The long wait has come to an end. Everyone is eager to dress up for this lovely day to celebrate with loved ones or with friends or with family members.

This special day always brings happiness and laughter when close friends gather up for a gathering. This years event will be held at 'Sanook' @ Kelana Jaya.

Aglio Olio Spaghetti @ RM26.00++

The atmosphere at Sanook and it's surrounding restaurants was simply amazing. Every outlet were dressed with Christmas themes and colours. Just fabulous. This is one reason why Christmas is being loved and enjoyed by all.

There was abundance of food for us all to munch. Simply irresistible simply marvelous a day we will never want to forget. Everything was going as planned except that food was served pretty slow. This is due to the fact this place was over-crowded. The spirits was high even though we had to wait for our food.

The Christmas holiday has just passed and it is not a very fortunate day for us who have to work on this Monday after the so-called long holiday. Traffic was a breeze, a consolation. I was apparently dragging myself up this morning but the thought of having an important appointment drove me up immediately. 'Turbo charged style'. LOL.

This appointment was to take place at Bangsar. A place where finding a parking space is almost zero. Most people who flock into Bangsar during peak hours have to make-do with illegal parking style. It is not something we want to do but rather forced to do so.

We decided to head towards 'Lanna Restaurant' as my client says they serve pretty good set lunches at reasonable price. This place according to my client is a popular place amongst the lunch crowd. We had 'Thai Fried Rice' and 'Lanna Daily Set' each going for RM9.30+.

Thai Fried Rice Set @ RM9.30+

The Thai fried rice set comes with two pieces of fried chicken which was rather bland and dry. The meat was hard. The Thai fried rice was just very ordinary and nothing special about it. I was very disappointed as I was expecting something better than what I had cause we were told that the chef is from Thailand.

Lanna Daily Set @ RM9.30+

My client's 'Lanna Daily Set' comes with some fish, chicken, vegetables, 'ikan bilis' and a bowl of tom yam soup. And of course a bowl of white rice. This set is really a bargain. Both the chicken and fish tasted very simple indeed but a tad too salty. The tom yam soup was good but was served mild warm which I would have prefered it to be 'hot'.

Conclusion : There are more than a dozen of set lunches to choose from. Food was very simple and nothing to shout about but if you are looking for a place with lovely ambiance or environment rather than food quality this place is recommended. Service was good too. Their waiter was very attentive and service was quick too. A 2/5. This place is open for both lunch and dinner.

Saturday, December 25, 2010

It was a hot sunny day. The normal question of 'where to have lunch' kept flashing in our mind. Indeed it was not an easy task. My working mates and I gave a dozen opinions or suggestions. Should we have Japanese or just have some hawker food or should we have something really good like 'sang har sang mee' or something like that. Truly we were like involved in a reality show.

Somehow we decided against all the above. Shockingly all of us said 'Aye' for 'bak kut teh'. But then that's not all ....... where should we have it? Someone suggested 'Pavilion' and one brilliant guy mentioned 'Jalan Imbi'. Viola !!!! Jalan Imbi that is.

This place is called 'Sun Fong Bak Kut Teh'. I remembered dining here before like more than 13 years ago. Yeah 13 years ago that's true. Back then this place is just like a dirty old shack but now it's like a totally new world to me. Fully renovated with both indoor and outdoor dining. I would say it's a little too 'commercialize'. I still prefer the olden days where everything was original. Oh well ....... moving along with time I reckon.

Bak Kut Teh @ RM52.00+

There were 5 of us and we decided to order a big pot of 'Bak Kut Teh' with mixture of lean and fatty meat, pork ribs and some 'spare parts' meant for 4. All of us was like 'drooling' when the waitress brought us a really big clay pot of 'BKT'. The aroma was simply amazing BUT I was shocked to find that the portion was just too little compared to the size of the pot. I felt we were like taken for a ride and being cheated in broad daylight. Oh well ..... shit happens especially dining in famous places in KL nowadays. This is a very normal scene.

Back to the food...... must really give credit to this pot of 'bak'. Truly amazing and delicious. Some had white rice and some had 'yam' rice. The broth was just simply breathtaking and we found ourselves requesting for 'tambah soup' in so many occasions. Not just the soup we requested to be added but the rice too.

Yam Rice @ RM1.70+

The yam rice was just so-so on it's own. The one I had in Kota Kinabalu was the best yam rice I have ever had and I was really disappointed with the ones served here. Just so lousy and more of a plain Jane to me. I would not have enjoyed the rice without the 'bak' soup which saved the day.

Fried Long Beans with Dried Shrimp @ RM13.00+

Fried Choy Sum @ RM11.50+

We also decided to order 2 different types of vegetables to neutralized the meaty stuff from the big pot of 'BKT'. The fried long beans was pretty good but a little too oily. Fried to perfection as the texture of the long beans was crunchy. Whereas the fried choy sum tasted second to the long beans. Nothing fantastic about it ... we did not even finish it.

Curry Prawn @ RM16.50+

Lastly came the curry prawn served in a mini 'wok'. Prawns was small in size and it was accompanied with some ladies fingers. This dish does increased our appetite but it could really be better. I found the taste to be very amateurish from too much usage of curry powder to generate the taste. I seriously could do a better job here.

Conclusion : All of us found the price to be staggering expensive. We had to fork out RM130.20 for the above meal and we have vowed not to step into this outlet for the rest of our life. All the dishes we ordered was in small size except for the 'bak kut teh' and for RM52.00 it is really a raw case of daylight robbery. This place is famous with tour guides flocking in tourists in loads of buses. Food and service was just so-so. And the only amazing thing about this place is it's price! A 1.5/5.